99% of Appeals Rejected: Occupation Issues Over 1,400 Administrative Detention Orders Since Start of Year
The Palestine Center for Prisoner Studies has confirmed that Israeli occupation authorities have sharply escalated the issuance of administrative detention orders against Palestinian prisoners. The Center documented more than 1,400 such orders since the beginning of this year, encompassing both new orders and renewals, all issued without specific charges.
Administrative detention, the Center said, is one of the occupation’s tools of collective punishment against the Palestinian people. The policy targets activists and pillars of Palestinian civil society, specifically the educated class: university students, academics, journalists, social leaders, and elected lawmakers. It has also been used against women, children, and the elderly.
Riad al-Ashqar, the Center’s director and a researcher, said the occupation has dramatically expanded its use of administrative detention since the genocidal war on the Gaza Strip began. The number of administrative detainees rose from 1,300 before October 7, 2023, to more than 3,500 as of February 2026, a level unseen in decades.
The occupation deliberately issues administrative orders at high volume against Palestinian prisoners to consume their lives behind bars with no legal basis, al-Ashqar said, in complete disregard for the safeguards set by international law, which restrict the use of this policy to narrow circumstances under strict conditions.
International law imposes clear requirements on the use of administrative detention, he explained. Chief among them: the detainee must be informed of the charges justifying detention, a time limit must be set, and the detainee must be guaranteed the right to legal counsel who can mount a defense and challenge the allegations. The occupation meets none of these standards.
Al-Ashqar confirmed that the occupation treats administrative detention as a purely security matter, administered entirely by the Shin Bet. It is the Shin Bet that dictates to the judge of the sham court who will be placed under administrative detention, whose orders will be renewed, and when a prisoner may be released. These decisions rest on secret files no one is permitted to see, with no indictments filed and no convictions to justify arbitrary detention that can last years, based solely on suspicion and intelligence reports.
Ninety-nine percent of appeals filed by lawyers of administrative detainees before occupation courts, both appellate and supreme, are rejected on the recommendation of intelligence services, al-Ashqar revealed. In the best-case scenario, an order is renewed one additional time alongside a substantive ruling barring further renewals, but only after the prisoner has already spent at least two years in administrative detention.
Al-Ashqar also pointed to the growing practice of converting sentenced prisoners to administrative detention after they complete their sentences, rather than releasing them. Among them is Anas Abu Seif from Jericho, who was recently placed under a four-month administrative detention order after serving his full seven-year sentence and completing all release procedures.
